Moonglow
Diamond Member
As I have always known, the doc finally gets it...
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/9-reasons-sanjay-gupta-changed-170000967.html
Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent, says he was wrong to ignore marijuana's medical potential when he wrote an opinion piece in 2009 called "Why I would Vote No on Pot."
Gupta filmed a documentary that aired on CNN on Sunday, August 11, and earlier this week wrote an editorial on CNN.com in which he admitted that the research for the movie changed his mind about the drug and its medicinal effects.
Gupta notes that marijuana doesn't have a "high potential for abuse" and it doesn't lead people to use other drugs. "We now know that while estimates vary, marijuana leads to dependence in around 9 to 10% of its adult users." Cocaine, classified as a (less addictive) schedule 2 substance, hooks 20% of those who use it. Around 25% of heroin users and 30% of tobacco users become addicted.
In some medical cases, marijuana is "the only thing that works." Gupta met with one woman in Colorado who used marijuana to cut the number of seizures she had from 300-per-week to two or three per month.
It's safer than a lot of prescription drugs: Someone dies from a prescription drug overdose every 19 minutes in the United States, but Gupta could not find a single person who died from a marijuana overdose.
Other doctors believe in it: Seventy-six percent of physicians surveyed would prescribe marijuana to ease the pain of women suffering from breast cancer.
While quitting marijuana can produce some withdrawal symptoms, like insomnia, anxiety and nausea, it is still nowhere near as bad at drugs like heroin or cocaine, or even booze. "I have seen the withdrawal from alcohol, and it can be life threatening," Gupta said. Not so with marijuana.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/9-reasons-sanjay-gupta-changed-170000967.html